


sky full of stars

by impossibletruths



Series: vigilance; victory; sacrifice [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Almost Kiss, Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Specifically Self-Sabotage As An Unhealthy Coping Mechanism, Stargazing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 03:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17541968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: “A tall order,” she says evenly. “To write our names in the sky.”“We’re Grey Wardens,” he says with the tone of someone quoting something they have heard before. “There is nothing that can stop us from accomplishing our goal. And,” he adds, “it would be pretty cool.”.things you said under the stars and in the grass





	sky full of stars

It’s good to see the sky again after so long trapped below the earth, buried in the Deep Roads.

She’s not the only one feeling lighter than usual for the open sky. Outside of the drunken dwarf they have managed to collect during the whole ordeal who looks up every few steps as though distrusting of the open firmament itself, the whole of their small band breathes freer. Even Morrigan has cracked a smile, proving miracles do indeed happen. Lira herself feels buoyed, unweighted without the heavy-dark rock looming over them, without the heat of the furnaces and the shouting of the darkspawn taint that threads through the earth.

So when Alistair drifts up next to her and says, “I want to show you something,” she doesn’t refuse, and blames their collective relief for her willingness to go along.

The northern reaches of Ferelden are familiar to her; even this far west it’s the same rolling hills drifting down to the Waking Sea, a dark smear to the north. The grasses here don’t rise in waves the way they do further south among the Bannorn, but between the low hills and the tufts of shrubs, the camp is a yellow flicker glow hidden in the dip between two swells of earth by the time Alistair settles. He chooses a spot at the top of one low hill, a crooked and bare-branched tree sprouting out of the dry northern soil, and sits with a heavy thump. The breeze smells faintly of salt as it curls through the branches and around them, a promise of the water they cannot see in the dark.

“Come on, sit,” he invites, and she does with uncharacteristic willingness. From somewhere he procures a wineskin that, she is surprised to find, lives up to its name.

“Where did you get this?” she asks, taking a tentative sip. It’s surprisingly good, dry and smooth and bitter. It has been some time since she’s had anything besides boiled-clean water or cheap ale; it reminds her suddenly and sharply of home, of warm meals around the table and Fergus protesting that she is not nearly old enough for a glass of her own, and she blinks back the sting of tears.

If Alistair notices, he doesn’t mention it, only leans back slightly on his hands. “The dwarven fellow, Bodahn. Has a few vintages in the back, actually.”

Lira passes the skin along to him.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Not being dead in the Deep Roads,” he replies. “Worth celebrating, I think. Staved that off for another few decades. Well done us.”

It’s not entirely something she feels like drinking to, but she wants even less to sour his good mood so she favors him with the shallow suggestion of a smile and accepts the skin when he hands it back to her, and soon it is empty, and Alistair topples back into the grass beneath the clear summer sky.

“Here it is,” he says, and Lira frowns down at him. It takes him a long moment to notice her stare, but once he does he waves her down next to him.

The wine tugs at her limbs, gives them more weight than usual, and she lays down more easily than she means to. He radiates warmth at her side.

“What?”

“What I wanted to show you.”

“Oh.”

It’s the night sky, same as it ever is. She tilts her head ever so slightly to stare at him, the even slope of his nose and the way his lips move as he speaks. “I know, I know.  _It’s just the sky, Alistair._  You’ve seen it before.” 

Maybe it is the wine, or the fresh air after so long beneath the earth, or the slope of his nose and the way his lips move when he speaks, but no barb comes to her lips. “You wanted to show me something,” she says quietly, as much an invitation as she can muster, and when he tilts his head toward her she’s still staring, too slow to look away. She does not entirely want to.

“Yeah,” he says, stumbling over the word. His eyes are dark in the dim light of the moon. “Yeah I–– Used to look up at them when I was, you know. Sleeping outside.” With the animals, he doesn’t say, but she knows it well enough, and his gaze slips away from her and back up to the sky. “Made up all sorts of stories. Arl Eamon used to say there were heroes in the sky so, well. I, um. Thought we might be up there some day.”

“As great heroes?”

“Well, sure.” He sounds defensive now, arms folding across his chest. “Assuming we don’t die between here and Redcliffe–– And Arl Eamon is cured–– and everyone who promised to help us actually does–– and we unseat Loghain–– and we kill the Archdemon–– Yeah!”

He speaks it with such confidence she cannot bring herself to disagree. Instead she humors him, rolling slightly to stare up at the guttering stars above. “Well then, which will we be?” she asks. 

There’s movement out of the corner of her eye as his head rolls to look at her, and then he swings his attention back skywards. His arm rises up to draw a shape against the darkness, and she follows it with a crooked care, eyes sliding along the path he traces.

“That’s you, obviously. With the daggers, see?” She can, just barely.

“And you?”

“Oh, well, I’m the one just next to you,” he says easily. “As always.”

Her heart twists at that, and when she glances at him out of the corner of her eye he is looking to her, not the skies. She takes a deep breath. 

“A tall order,” she says evenly. “To write our names in the sky.”

“We’re Grey Wardens,” he says with the tone of someone quoting something they have heard before. “There is nothing that can stop us from accomplishing our goal. And,” he adds, “it would be pretty cool.”

She doesn’t need––doesn’t want––her name writ large, but his boyish charm is endearing. “Then I suppose we must succeed.”

“Yeah,” he says, and he laughs, sound bubbling up and bleeding into the sea-breeze air around them. It warms her, sure as the sun. Or maybe that is the wine.

Eventually, though, the noise fades away into the starry night, and there is nothing but the rustle of the breeze through the shrubs and their breathing and somewhere, very far away, the sound of the sea. 

“Lira,” he says into the hush, and when she turns to her side he is staring at her, all hope and wonder. The empty wineskin sits between them. Her heart twists. “We will do it, won’t we?”

“Of course,” she says, and that is honest as anything. “We cannot fail.”

Something almost the shape of a smile touches his lips. “I was so afraid, you know,” he tells her quietly. He needs be no louder; they are turned face to face, only a few inches between them. His voice settles in the hollow, fills it wide as the ocean. “I almost wished I’d died with the rest of the wardens. But to survive alongside you… I though, maybe it’s not so bad I survived.”

It is not the first time he has said something in the shape of such a sentiment, but something in his face is surer now. Older, maybe, like he has cut away the uncertainty and the youth and something of the man shows through behind it. The change catches her unawares, and she cannot keep staring at him. She looks back to the sky. 

She doesn’t have words for him, cannot offer lies or truth or anything except the empty space of the hilltop and the empty wineskin between them. She doesn’t trust herself to give more.

She wants to kiss him so badly she can taste it. She digs her hands into the dry-cool earth and swallows it back.

Eventually he shifts again at her side, and when she chances a glance in his direction he’s returned to staring at the stars. The tension slowly unwinds from her shoulders; her hands unclench. The warmth of the wine sours in her stomach, bitter and sick, and the lightness that has lifted her steps since emerging from the earth punctures like a lung, seeping away and out into the night. The shock of it tightens around her chest.

“Sorry,” says Alistair suddenly. “You probably think this is very…” He waves a hand in the air. “Touchy-feely. Soft-hearted Alistair at it again.”

“I don’t,” she tells the sky. “It’s not.” He’s not, or he is but it isn’t something to be ashamed of. She can’t find the words for that, though. “It isn’t.”

“Oh,” he says, surprised almost, and her chest aches anew, and she almost misses the pressure of the earth all around her. Better that than this unmooring. “Okay.”

She sits up slowly, and he sits to join her. He leans forward a little, elbows hooked around his knees, and it turns him all to shadows in the moonlight, shadows and the slight shimmer of armor. She smiles, just a little, sad and tired and heartsick. “You really are a good man, Alistair.”

She can see the crease of his frown in the way the light dims in his eyes, brow heavy. “So are you. Woman, I mean. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

It isn’t true, but she can appreciate the sentiment. She leans over, just a little, to kiss his cheek. She can feel the warmth radiating from his skin, and the scrape of a missed shave, the the way his breath catches when she pulls away.

“The stars would be lucky to have you,” she tells him quietly, and stands. “Goodnight, Alistair.”

“I–– Oh. Um, goodnight.”

She picks her way back down the hill alone, and the breeze drifting off the sea cuts a chill swath through the warm summer night, worming its way between the cracks in her armor and settling deep in her bones. Zevran, who sits awake on watch when she returns to camp, nods to her and goes back to his task, and she appreciates the suggestion of privacy. The others are already asleep, their bedrolls a loose circle around the low-burning fire. Lira collects hers and finds spot at the edge of the firelight, rolls it out wordlessly and tries her best to sleep.

It is a futile attempt.

So she is still awake when Alistair slips back down the hill in her wake, armor sliding and clinking quietly as he walks.

“A romantic tryst, was it?” Zevran asks him, quiet but not quite quiet enough. Lira closes her eyes and fakes sleep as best she can. “Short lived, no? If it is pointers you need––”

“It isn’t,” Alistair says, but he sounds neither embarrassed nor irritated at the elf’s suggestion. “It–– I don’t know.”

“Ah, my friend,” says Zevran. “Is it love? That is much worse.”

“No. No, it––” He sighs. “I wish I knew how to help.”

“I see.” Zevran is quiet for a long moment. Lira’s stomach is a stone, weighing her down, pinning her to the earth. He sighs. “As do I.”

There is rustling, and the low sound of a hand clapped against a shoulder, and one of them huffs. Lira’s throat burns. She swallows that down too.

“Goodnight, Zev,” Alistair says quietly.

“Goodnight, my friend. Sleep well.”

She listens to Alistair bed down for the night, and it is not long at all before his snoring joins the uneven rhythm of the sleeping camp. Lira lets go the pretense of sleep, opens her eyes to stare up at the wheeling stars, silver-cold pinpricks of light so high above. She thinks of Oghren’s silent distrust, of the dwarves who say it is possible to fall into the sky, as if all that nothingness might swallow one whole, and almost wishes it were true.

It takes her a long time to get to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> find me (and more of these two) on tumblr at [@cityandking](http://cityandking.tumblr.com)


End file.
